


Curious Roses

by lilypond8



Category: Ozmafia!! (Visual Novel)
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Light Angst, M/M, Romantic if you squint, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 10:23:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13456251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilypond8/pseuds/lilypond8
Summary: Kyrie is averyconvincing actor.





	Curious Roses

To say that Kyrie hated people was a fallacy akin to saying the sky was blue, or roses were red. The misconception lay with the simplicity of the statement. The sky can be blue, but may also be a multitude of other fascinating colors, such as a dark, dreary gray on a cold December's morning. And roses can be red, if the conditions and genetics allow for it. But in this weather, they wilt and their petals, dry and blackened by the lack of sunlight and warmth, shed and fall to the ground. 

Kyrie frowned, touching the shriveled leaves of his roses. A particularly brittle leaf snapped and fell to the ground along with the rest of shriveled foliage. He sighed and dusted himself off, leaving his flowers to slowly decay and eventually be crushed under the coming snowfall. It can't be helped really. With winter comes stagnancy, and with that stagnancy comes death. 

However Kyrie hoped his roses would survive the winter. The shopkeeper had told him of their rather peculiar nature of growing in unusual places, and so he thought the cold would actually had been more helpful. He chastised himself. Things were never as simple as they seemed.

His stroll back to the manor was quite, almost peaceful, save for the few message carriers that darted across the courtyard. After terrorizing a few attendants by chastising their sluggish, apathetic approach to their job, and helpfully reminding them of how easily a errand boy can be replaced (they were neither sluggish nor apathetic, but fear _is_ a considerable motivator), he went about his daily tasks. With the kitchen empty, and the barracks just rousing to awareness, there was only one place left to go. 

Kyrie entered Caramia's office, though it was only his in name. Kyrie spent most of his time in the room, writing new tax code and making sure their documents were up-to-date, as well as managing their many accounts. It was a difficult, yet rewarding job, if he played his cards right. 

He had set about organizing and reading the most urgent of documents, sure to leave more than enough work for Caramia, when he noticed that the lion had not joined him. Usually he was the first to rise, and was either here, or in the kitchen. But with both of those places vacant, and Kyrie's patients wearing thin, he decided to find him.

\------

Caramia's quarters were uncharacteristically clean, the scarecrow thought to himself as he stepped inside, not bothering to knock. The room itself was clean enough, but his personal effects we scattered about. He scanned the room carefully and found his target. Peeking out from under the covers was a tuft of red hair. 

Strange. The don was often the first to wake and go about his duties, yet on today of all days he somehow defied all logic and became even more useless than he usually is. If incompetence were to be compensated, the man deserved a award.

"If your going to shrink your duties, I suggest you find a hiding spot better suited to waste like you."

No response. 

Well, this is a surprise. Usually Caramia was quick to jump to his own defense, spouting trivial information and excuses. He pulled the cover back and found out just why he was so quiet.

The first thing Kyrie noticed was how flushed the other man was. His face was ruddied, and drenched with sweat, yet he shivered as if the room were in glacial conditions. His expression was contorted into that of suffering, which Kyrie would have taken delight in, if it hadn't come at such a inconvenient time. 

He had done all the paperwork for the most pressing matters, but it meant nothing if the don's signature wasn't hastily scribbled near the bottom. But with Caramia in a restless state of comatose, that wasn't going to happen.

He looked down at the man who, in every sense of the word, looked like death. 

It was almost funny to the Kyrie, how the king of the jungle was so easily incapacitated by a mere fever. 

"And they said fools dont catch colds," He said with a smirk. And then with a flick of his wrist, he flung the cover back over the man's face. 

He knew how to treat a fever, he knew everything after all. But he also knew that Caramia wouldn't need his help. He wouldn't die from a simple fever.

And yet, despite that line of thinking, he stayed in the room. Just incase. If the Don died, it would only create more paperwork for himself, and as he saw it, he quite enjoyed his current position of Consigliere. 

And so he flit about the room, carelessly moving things about (If Caramia can find the time to be sickly, he can re-organize this mess as well) until he got to the bookcase. It wasn't large, as most space was taken up by the desk and the invalid, but seemed to have a good selection of genres and authors. Kyrie knew of the dons affinity for reading, but never gave it much thought until he'd scene the the collection for himself. 

He stood in front of the bookcase for a beat, before plucking a leather bound book from the shelf. It was the smallest and what seemed to be eldest book on the self, and stood out from the rest in a way that the consigliere couldn't quite finger. He examined the small, relatively thin book, turning it over in his hands. The leather bound book was rather disfigured, with its pages dog eared and torn in places. It was clearly a long term, and well loved addition to the don's private library. There was no title, and confused, Kyrie opened it, separating pages that were cemented together by time.

He pulled the chair from the desk towards the bed, and sat silently for hours, reading a book with no title.

\------

Axel was a simple man. If there were orders to carry out, he saw to them, but these orders rarely brought him to the Don's quarters. 

He was tasked to retrieve medicine from Dr. Robin. However it took all day, due to a skirmish between two mafia that ended in many wounded and many more dead. 

By the time he returned, the last light of day was shining through the windows of the mansion. He hurried to deliver the much needed medicine.

"Sir, I've retrieved your medi-" Axel stopped himself. What was Kyrie doing here?

The scarecrow seemed to be sleeping in a chair, close to the don's bed. In his lap was a old worn book. He had clearly been here a while to have fallen a sleep.

Still this was...odd. Kyrie never took interest someone unless it was to achieve some personal goal.

"Please, don't mind my presence, Axel, do whatever your archaic mechanisms have programmed." Axel jumped. Kyrie didn't so much as open a single eye.

Axel entered the room completely.  
"Your not going to kill the Don, are you?" Axel questioned, skeptical of Kyrie's presence in the Don's room.

At that Kyrie opened his eyes, and snickered in a almost patronizing way. 

"Please, with Caramia incapacitated like that, I could have done it a thousand times over by now. I wonder how much of a fight, and anesthetized man could put up..." he paused for a moment, and pretended to contemplate just how he would kill the Don. He scoffed, as if he'd soil his hands. "Just do what you've come to do." 

Axel frowned, clearly unsure of what to make of the situation. But orders are orders.

He sighed and put the small vial of medicine on the bed side table, before heading out once more.

And with that intrusion, Kyrie decided he'd spent long enough in the company of a man who was, in all accounts, dead to the world.

\------

"So a invalid can putter about." Kyrie pondered aloud, as he stepped into the kitchen.

Caramia jumped, the concoction in his hands threatened to spill from the bowl. He rights the bowl, cradling it in both arms as if it's a child before fixing Kyrie with a severe look.

Or at least trying to. Kyrie doesn't remember ever listening to the dumb lion, and that stupid look on his face doesn't make him want to any more than a verbal reprimand would have. So he holds eye contact with the man as he crosses the kitchen and pulls up a chair.

After a moment of tension, Caramia sighs and continues stirring whatever poisonous sludge he's trying to pass off as edible. "...You don't have to sneak up on me you know."

"Oh I would never try to hide my presence from you, your lack of perception is clearly your fault alone. I have nothing to do with your inadequacies." He folded a leg over the other and watched as Caramia tried to ignore him with varying degrees of success. 

Caramia loved to cook. He enjoyed creating new foods and sharing those creations with the rest of the house. This is why Kyrie went out to torment him. Kyrie enjoyed seeing that dismal look on the other, disgustingly optimistic man's face. And today he needed to know if he was losing his touch. 

"Be sure not to spread your illness elsewhere." It was said in jest, Kyrie couldn't care less who was ill, or even who died. But the words hit their mark, slowing the whisk in Caramia's hand to a halt. 

"Axel told me about how you spent the day with me, yesterday that is..."

Well that wasn't expected. Although the tin man has developed the superfluous habit of speaking far to much for his own good. Kyrie wonders how many bolts he'd have to unscrew before he'd fall apart before realizing he's been silent for a tad to long.

"Oh...so he has..." There is a long pause.

"Thank you, Kyrie." The honest look of gratitude on the other man's face is enough to make even Kyrie feel ill. 

He turns his head casually, "Think nothing of it," he takes the worn leather book from his coat pocket and opens it, " I was enjoying the company of this book far more than your motionless personage. Although I must say, I prefer when you less articulate."

One look at the book in his hand forces Caramia's look of contentment into delicious dread. With the bowl of sludge forgotten on the table, he nearly growls "Give. It. Back."

"Now, why would I do that?" He stands, then flips to a random page and reads aloud. "I saw a butterfly today, I like butterflies because they aren't scary, not like bees-" the book is ripped from his hands, and Kyrie watches as Caramia holds it close to his person. 

"That's private." 

"Why? It's not as if I didn't go on that same journey with you, all those many years ago..." Kyrie hums and strokes his chin before continuing "Although I never imagined you- of all people- a writer."

"It- it seemed like a good idea at the time, ok?" His defense dying in his throat. Kyrie almost laughed. But he had gone on that journey as well. It changed them all into the people they were today. 

To be perfectly honest, when he realized how personal the book was, Kyrie was going to put it back, uninterested in retellings of ventures past. But the book reminded him of how drastic the change was. How they had become entirely different over night. It almost made him wistful of the past. If only for a moment.

Kyrie sighs and claps a hand on the other man's shoulder. "Try not to kill anyone with that disgusting slop of yours." And with the last line of the diary still on his mind, he leaves the room, as silently as he arrived.

\------

_I'm not afraid anymore, I feel brand new. It's like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders, and I'm sure the others feel the same. The tin man has a heart, he can feel now, isn't that wonderful?! And the scarecrow, he's so smart, you should see him! And Dorothy? She's finally gone home. It's a strange experience, to have one chapter of your life close so suddenly- but I like this. I like the new me. And so I'll make new memories, with the friends I've made along the way._

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thanks for reading this! I wrote this about a year ago and I've finally gotten the nerve to publish it!! So here it is!!! in all its glory! :D :D :D


End file.
